Ingredients

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Instructions

Start with the beer. Once you start with the raw chicken there’s no going back. I like to add garlic, rosemary and lemon to the beer can for adding some flavor to the internal steam that keeps the bird moist.

Drink at least half of the beer.

At least half, the volume of the garlic lemon and herbs will displace a lot of beer, and surprisingly not much of the beer evaporates. Another tip, don’t go large on the bird, chicken takes a long time to cook so get a couple smaller birds and more beer. A can opener will take the top off of a beer can with great ease, I fully recommend this for ease of adding ingredients.

Pull the guts out of the bird(s) to make room for the beer can(s). Pour the salt and olive oil and lemon pepper into a small bowl, mix and apply to the skin. Salt makes the skin crispy delicious.

Tie or skewer the wings and legs to the body to keep them from getting over done. Body cavity fully upright over the beer can and carefully set it on the grill, you can use a rack, but I never have, even though I really should. Primarily for stability. Spilling beer isn’t usually a disaster, but I don’t pour it out for dead chickens.

Depending on the size of the chicken it can take up to an hour on the grill, use approprite amount of charcoal for keeping heat for an extended period of time. The beer helps in higher heat steaming internally, so the bird can withstand long periods of time on the grill.

Recommended internal temperature is 160 F, metal meat thermometer, buy it if you don’t have one, you probably don’t need it for ribs, brats or steak but chicken is trickier. It’s going to take about 45 minutes to an hour of longer if you want. Today we used Alder chips to smoke also, highly recommended, Apple chips are also really good with chicken.

Once you decide you chicken is done let it stand for 15-20 minutes covered with foil to let it cool HOT BEER CAN is not worth trying to pull out. Don’t be stupid, please, check the internal temperature and don’t burn yourself.

Try not to spill beer on your chicken, don’t drink the beer that came out of the chicken. Use it for soup if there are left-overs.

Variations

Use different rubs with different ingredients in the beer, my next one will be cinnamon, curry and sugar and a few other surprises.